Category: Ireland

After a huge overnight raimstorm that we were very happy did not occur while we were biking, we left the charming seaside resort of Dungarvan for Cork, Ireland’s second city and the jumping off point for our ferry to France.

Time to find pints of Beamish, one of Corks native stouts, to celebrate a good start of our honeymoon in Ireland.

We had quite an adventure trying to find a place to stay in Kells; there was one well-signed B&B, which was beautiful and fully booked up. The proprietor helped us by calling another B&B in town, The Chestnut Lodge, and then proceeded to give us wrong directions. We biked to the next town before realizing that she had omitted to mention a turn. We eventually found a house with a sign out saying it was The Chestnut Lodge, but we were a bit concerned when it had a large fence in the yard covered in graffitti. Skillfully done graffiti, but still not what you expect from a B&B. A youngish man came out and told us it was now a house for troubled inner city youth from Wexford. Did he know of another Chestnut Lodge? After all, we just called and got directions to this place, and for $@%*! sake it has a sign outside saying “Chestnut Lodge”. He had no idea, he was from Wexford.

So we went to the neighboring house, one of the many nouveau-riche looking country houses that dot the Irish countryside. In keeping with the Irish inclination to name their country houses, it had a sign out front saying it was “The Grange”. Another youngish tattooed man answered the door. Did he know where the Chestnut Lodge was? Oh, yes, this was it. They had sold the old Chestnut Lodge and built a new one next door.Continue reading →

First we’d like to thank British airways for getting our bikes here on time, without incident, and without charging us any extra fees. We put together our bikes and ate a pad thai dinner in the airport and cycled off to our b&b, about 10 miles. By the time we reached it, it was 10:30 – later than we planned, but our flight was delayed and we’re slower at bike assembly than we expected.